Onondaga Lake Visitor Center offers upbeat picture of massive cleanup

Some of the best views of Onondaga Lake right now are from a new building at the edge of the massive Honeywell cleanup operation, where barges dig out tons of contaminated muck each day.

The Onondaga Lake Visitors Center, adjacent to Honeywell’s cleanup headquarters on the southwestern shore, will open Friday. The center, funded and operated by Honeywell, is intended to educate groups of scheduled guests about the cleanup and the possibilities a cleaner lake could offer.

It is housed in two double-wide construction trailers that have been expanded and improved. The 1,167-square-foot center overlooks the lake and includes an even larger outside deck that commands vistas in three directions. Large windows on three sides of the building make for great views from inside as well.

Perhaps the most striking construction upgrade is the hardwood flooring, which was salvaged from an old schoolhouse.

John McAuliffe, Honeywell’s Syracuse program director, said a visit to the center will answer a lot of questions people in the community have about the cleanup.

“The Vistors Center allows people an opportunity to come out and to learn about the dredging and the capping and to get access to the work,” he said. “It starts to create the vision for what the natural beauty and the value of the lake is.”

Visitors should expect to see a fascinating — and relentlessly upbeat — picture of the cleanup and what it might accomplish. The center was funded entirely by Honeywell. McAuliffe said he could not say how much it cost — just that it was part of the scope of the $500 million cleanup project.

Inside the center, a video and displays along the walls give overviews of the lake’s history and the cleanup Honeywell says will bring it back to life.

Separate video screens show a live feed of the work at the site in Camillus where the muck from the lake is piped. An animation takes viewers through the process of dredging, piping the slurry from the lake to Camillus, draining and storing the sediments there and then treating the remaining water and sending it on to the Metropolitan Sewage Treatment Plant.

An interactive map shows the enormous scope of the venture, which is the biggest lake dredging project for environmental remediation in the history of the state, and one of the top five such projects in the history of the nation.

The center is open and free to visitors who call to schedule appointments. Different experts will be on hand to address groups, depending on what aspects of the cleanup they are most interested in. In the spring, the center plans to hold open houses on Fridays so visitors can stop by unannounced.

The first group to visit will be a biology class from Henninger High School on Monday. Other groups that have already scheduled visits include the newly formed Solvay Citizens Action Group, the Baldwinsville Kiwanis Club and the American Society of Highway Engineers.

McAuliffe said a decision on whether the building will be removed after the four-year duration of the project or kept permanently on the shore has not been made. It is on land owned by the state Department of Transportation — one of the few bits of shoreline not owned by Onondaga County.

To schedule an appointment, call Honeywell at 315-552-9751 or submit the form found at www.lakecleanup.com that Honeywell said will be available starting today.